For California state senator Deborah Ortiz, that would describe smoking in a car in which a child is present. Writes Brooke Oberwetter at CEI Open Market (Jun. 29): “According to the Contra Costa Times, smokers can be fined under [a bill approved by the committee Ortiz chairs] even if the car is parked and on private property. Clearly California is just a cigarette’s flick away from suggesting banning smoking in private homes: If they can tell you what you can and cannot do in the driveway, is there really much left in terms of precedent to stop them from stepping gingerly up to the front porch and peering in the windows?” A similar bill has already passed the California assembly. (Edwin Garcia, “Bill targets smokers with children”, Contra Costa Times, Jun. 29; Michael Siegel, Jun. 29). Earlier coverage: May 1 and links from there. On the follies of GOP governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, who promoted a similar measure in that state, see The Agitator, Jun. 9.
“Something which I would consider akin to child abuse”
For California state senator Deborah Ortiz, that would describe smoking in a car in which a child is present. Writes Brooke Oberwetter at CEI Open Market (Jun. 29): “According to the Contra Costa Times, smokers can be fined under [a bill approved by the committee Ortiz chairs] even if the car is parked and on […]
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Typical California political posturing. If they really want to prevent those kids from harm, then should not allow people who smoke, or might start, to breed. I think we’d all benefit in that case.
When they ban smoking in the entire state, and it’s sure headed that way, how long before cigarette smuggling and its inevitable crime wave will be the No. 1 complaint of well-meaning CA residents and politicians. geesh. idiots.
Now wait a minute! I am generally rather conservative. I am opposed to heavy government regulation of our lives. I am against a lot of the laws targeting smokers. And I’m a (hopefully-soon-to-be-ex) smoker.
I also have two young boys. I do not smoke around them nor do I allow anyone else to. I am firmly against smoking in their presence and would never dream of smoking in the car while they were in it.
Children don’t have a political voice. Nor do they have the ability to walk away from smoke the way adults do.
People should not be smoking around their children. Those who do should be deemed child abusers. These kinds of laws designed to protect children are in place because most people are too stupid, inconsiderate, selfish, or f#cked in the head to do what is best for their children. I am all in favor of this law.
What an insult to kids who were actually abused as children to lump them in the same group as those who may have been exposed to second hand smoke!
I suppose feeding your kids Twinkies should be grounds for a prison term, too. Clearly, twinkies are not healthy. Send those kids off to the foster care system for their protection!
Feel-good crap. Politicians know only about twenty percent of people smoke and they are not organized in the manner of NAACP or NRA, and everyone knows smoking is bad, so it is pretty safe to pass this stuff.
Yes I smoke. But I also find it objectionable at times. And I try not to discommode non-smokers. But I also know that in the roughly forty years since health links between active smoking and deleterious effects was established, ETS/SHS has been linked by “well, it makes sense” – the science shows no results not outside the parameters of randomization, even for asthma sufferers.